WHAT DOES

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WHAT DOES

• QUANTUM PHYSICS

HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
Jonathan Robison PhD, MS
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17th CENTURY WORLDVIEW

• Mechanistic universe as machine
• Reductionist whole sum of its parts

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REDUCTIONISM

• Whole Sum of Its Parts
• classical Newtonian Physics
• matter as discrete particles
• atomic / subatomic building blocks
• standard for scientific investigation
• foundation for all human systems

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17th CENTURY LEGACY

• Only those things that can be measured and
  quantified are real
• Anything else is considered to be unworthy of
  scientific investigation
• The purpose of science is to dominate control
  the natural world

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17th CENTURY LEGACY

• What is being studied exists external to and is
  independent of the scientist, who discovers and
  characterizes its properties and behavior.

Dr. George Engel, Psychother Psycosom, 1992
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CARTESIAN CERTAINTY
All science is certain, evident knowledge. We
reject all knowledge which is merely probable and
judge that only those things should be believed
which are perfectly known and about which there
are no doubts.
Rene Descartes
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20th CENTURY WORLDVIEW

• Organic living, spiritual in nature
• Holistic whole sum of its parts
• Ecological connected web of life
• Partnership feminine masculine values
  honored

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20th CENTURY CHALLENGE

• Anthropology / Archaeology
• Psychoneuroimmunology
• Quantum Physics
• Chaos Theory

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QUANTUM REALITY

• No one understands quantum mechanics.
• Do not keep saying to yourself... But how
  can it be like
  that? Because you will go down the drain into
  a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.
  Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Richard Feynman
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QUANTUM REALITY
All my attempts to adapt the theoretical
foundation of physics to this knowledge failed
completely. It was as if the ground had been
pulled out from under one, with no firm
foundation to be seen anywhere.
Albert Einstein
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QUANTUM REALITY

• Principle of Complementarity
• Subatomic entities exist
• simultaneously as both
• waves particles

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QUANTUM REALITY

• Uncertainty Principle
• Wave particle nature
• cannot be accurately measured
• at the same time

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Quantum Uncertainty

• The exact properties of the duality must
  always elude any measurement we might hope to
  make. The most we can hope to know about any
  given wave packet is a fuzzy reading of its
  position and an equally fuzzy reading of its
  momentum.

Zohar, The Quantum Self
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Quantum Uncertainty

• This essential fuzzinessreplaces the old
  Newtonian Determinism, where everything about
  physical reality was fixed, determined and
  measurable with a vast porridge of being
  where... everything remains indeterminate,
  somewhat ghostly and just beyond our grasp.

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QUANTUM REALITY

• The Double-Slit Experiment
• All of quantum physics can be gleaned from
  carefully thinking through the implications of
  this single experiment

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QUANTUM REALITY

• Participatory Universe
• What is being studied is inseparable
• from the scientist, who devises
• mental constructs of his/her
• experiences with it as a means of
• characterizing his/her understanding
• of its properties and behavior

Einstein, Heisenberg
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QUANTUM REALITY

• Participatory Universe
• The act of observing alters the
• properties of what is being observed.
• Whether an electron acts as a particle
• or a wave actually depends on how
• we look at (measure) them.

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QUANTUM REALITY
Connectedness

• Isolated material particles are
  abstractions, their properties being definable
  and observable only through their interaction
  with other systems

Niels Bohr
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QUANTUM REALITY
Connectedness

• Sub-atomic entities are actually best described
  not as things but as interconnections or
  relationships between things

Niels Bohr
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QUANTUM REALITY
Connectedness

• Ultimately, the entire universe (with all its
  particles, including those constituting human
  beings) has to be understood as a single
  undivided whole, in which analysis into
  separately and independently existent parts has
  no fundamental status.

David Bohm
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QUANTUM REALITY

• Nonlocality

Subatomic particles that once have been in
contact retain an instantaneous connection no
matter how far apart they are
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IMPLICATIONS

• Complementarity
• both / and vs. either / or

Particle Wave Body Spirit /
Mind Masculine Feminine Health
Disease Science Spirituality
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SCIENCE RELIGION
Science without religion is lame, Religion
without science is blind.
Albert Einstein
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IMPLICATIONS

• Cartesian Certainty

Quantum Uncertainty
Twentieth-century physics has shown us very
forcefully that there is no absolute truth in
science, that all our concepts and theories
are limited and approximate.
Fritjof Capra
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IMPLICATIONS

• Scientific Objectivity

• There is no such thing as objectivity.
• We all interpret our perceptions in the
• light of our beliefs and expectations.

Daniel Benor, Spiritual Healing
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IMPLICATIONS

• Scientific Objectivity

• According to quantum physics there
• is no such thing as objectivity
• Facts and scientific data are created
• in the act of observation

Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters
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The Effect of Age on
the Association Between Body-Mass Index
and Mortality

• Stevens et al., NEJM 19983381-7

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OBJECTIVE EVALUATION?

• An extremely important health
• problemreinforces the hazards of
• body weight
• Mortality risk of obesity is slight
• and nonexistent for the elderly

Stevens et al.,, NEJM 19983381-7
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OBJECTIVE

• Uninfluenced by emotion,
• surmise, or personal prejudice.

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IMPLICATIONS

• Measurement Mania

Not everything that can be counted counts
and not everything that counts can be
counted.
Einstein
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IMPLICATIONS

• Rather than ignore things we cant
• measure we begin to see them as the
• true foundations of our being and
• our health.

Michael D, World Future Society Bulletin, 17(1),
1-6.
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IMPLICATIONS

• Outcome Obsession

• Descartes - Gain knowledge by
• eliminating uncertainty
• Bacon - Eliminate uncertainty by
• controlling nature

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OUTCOME OBSESSION
When were in complete control, everything will
be fine. Well have fusion power. No Pollution.
Well turn the rain on and offWell turn the
oceans into farms. Well control the weather. No
more hurricanes, no more tornados, no more
droughtsAll the life processes of this planet
will be where they belong - where the gods meant
them to be - in our hands.
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael
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LINEAR CAUSALITY

• Disassemble natural processes
• Apply appropriate universal laws
• Predict and control future changes

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CHAOS The Science of Change

• Complex Systems
• Nonlinear Causality
• Everything Affects Everything

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IMPLICATIONS

• Outcome Obsession

Chaos theory tells us that our interventions are
limited and that their outcome is always, to a
certain crucial degree, unpredictable.
Briggs Peat, Seven Lessons of Chaos, 1999
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CHAOS CHANGE
The simple laws of cause and effect do not
sufficiently explain the life changes one
experiences. We do not totally understand the
complex feedback mechanisms at work in men and
women. Nevertheless we can learn to rely more on
our intuitive, creative capacities in the face of
disorder and uncertainty, even though we may not
know the mechanisms of cause and effect.
Gelatt, Chaos and Compassion,Counseling Values
1995
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CHAOS CHANGE
We can never be sure how important our own
individual contribution will be. Our action may
be lost in the chaos that surrounds us, or it may
join with one of those many loops that sustain an
open, creative community. On rare occasions it
may even be taken up and amplified until it
transforms the entire community.
Briggs Peat, Seven Lessons of Chaos, 1999
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CHAOS CHANGE
We may never know if or how or when our
influence will have an effect. The best we can do
is act with truth, sincerity, and sensitivity,
remembering that it is never one person who
brings about change but the feedback of change
within the entire system.
Briggs Peat, Seven Lessons of Chaos, 1999
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IMPLICATIONS
Nonlocality

• Distant Healing
• Intercessory Prayer
• Precognitive Shared Dreams
• Intuitive Diagnosis
• Telesomatic Events

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HOLISTIC SCIENCE

• Scientists will not need to be reluctant to
  adopt a holistic framework, as they often are
  today, for fear of being unscientific. Modern
  physics can show them that such a framework is
  not only scientific but is in agreement with the
  most advanced scientific theories of physical
  reality.

Fritjof Capra
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HUMAN SPIRITUALITY

• A feeling of belonging, of connectedness to each
  other, to nature, and to the cosmos as a whole

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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY

• The main reason science is useful is that it
• attempts to solve our human problems.
• The main reason spirituality is useful is
• that it helps to solve our human problems.
• Its time that we recognize that the
• solutions science and spirituality offer are
• one and the same

The Spiritual Universe, Fred Alan Wolf, PhD
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY

• The world thus appears as a
• complicated tissue of events, in
• which connections of different
• kinds alternate or overlap or
• combine and thereby determine
• the texture of the whole.

Heisenberg
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY
The material object becomes something
different from what we now see, not a separate
object on the background or in the environment
of the rest of nature but an indivisible part
and even in a subtle way an expression of the
unity of all that we see.
Yoga Master
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY
An elementary particle is not an
independently existing unanalyzable entity. It
is, in essence, a set of relationships that
reach outward to other things.
Physics
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY

• Things derive their being and
• nature by mutual dependence and
• are nothing in themselves

Buddhism in Capra Tao of Physics, 138
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY

• A Chinese tale tells of some men
• sent to harm a young girl who, upon
• seeing her beauty, became her
• protectors rather than her violators.
• Thats how I felt seeing the Earth for
• the first time. I could not help but
• love and cherish her.

Robert Keck, Sacred Eyes
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY

• The most beautiful and profound emotion that we
  can experience is the sensation of the mystical.
  It is the sower of all true science. He to whom
  this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer
  wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as
  dead.

Einstein
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SCIENCE SPIRITUALITY

• There are two ways to live your life.
• One is as though nothing is a miracle.
• The other is as though everything is a
• miracle.

Einstein